What a difference a few weeks, days and hours makes. Before the travel bans, before sports and concerts cancelled and before schools closed, I paid a visit to Syracuse University for my college radio station’s 35th annual reunion. I returned from that trip just nine days ago. The keynote of the WJPZ Alumni Banquet featured … Continue reading Interview With Brent Axe: Coronavirus and the POKE Scale
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My favorite marketing book of all-time is “Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It” by strategist Al Ries, and one of the most important lessons in the book involves one simple question. What’s your word? Consumers make product decisions on words, not visuals. When you look at or think about products, you don’t … Continue reading What’s Your Word?
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The North American sports landscape is littered with failed launches of major leagues to compete with the established players. In basketball, the ABA collapsed, and four remaining viable franchises joined the NBA in 1976. A similar thing happened in hockey three years later when the WHA failed in its effort to take on the NHL. … Continue reading Outside Thinking Gives the XFL a Better Chance to Succeed
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Last Tuesday evening, my colleague Sam Milkman and I had the pleasure and privilege of presenting our findings from a recent study to a room full of Country industry folks—performers, agents, publishers, reporters, etc.—several stories above the streets of Nashville. I’m admittedly bad at estimating numbers of people in a room, but I counted a … Continue reading Changing the Country Radio Conversation
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When the HQ Trivia app was released in the summer of 2017, it was an instant sensation. It was #1 on Time’s 10 Top Apps of 2017. Partnerships with brands including Nike, Google and Warner Brothers brought in millions in revenue. The popularity of HQ influenced internal discussions about what lessons radio shows could learn … Continue reading Three Reasons Why the HQ Trivia App Failed
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It’s an easy trap to fall into. And it happens in politics, radio and brand marketing. We market ourselves and our products under the assumption that people make rational decisions based on key issues or features that we recognize as being important to the majority. A politician may say “I support border protection, gun control … Continue reading Be the Fan Favorite
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“Start with the customer experience and work backwards.” That’s what Steve Jobs says 1:55 into this video from 1997 in response to an audience member who was questioning Jobs’ strategic direction. It’s an example of Outside Thinking–seeing your product from the viewpoint of your customers. In the video, Jobs goes on to give an example … Continue reading Start With the Customer and Work Backwards
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In business, you are either the disrupter or the one being disrupted. It may not be happening now, but eventually, someone will try to build a better mousetrap in your industry. At one time, Raleighwood Cinema Grill in Raleigh, North Carolina was a disrupter. When it opened in the mid-1990s, with few exceptions, movie theaters … Continue reading Disruption, Adaptation and Surrender
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We consider ourselves fortunate to work with some of the most strategic minds in the audio entertainment space. But even the most seasoned strategists fall into the trap of what we call “Inside Thinking”—when you get too close to the product for your own good and are unable to see it through the lens of … Continue reading The Seven Deadly Sins of (Non) Strategic Thinking
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I was driving my 13-year-old son Teddy to school about a month ago and listening to the morning show on one of our local radio stations. Out of nowhere, he turned to me and said, “Let’s call the station.” Turns out he was interested in requesting a song and seeing if there was a contest … Continue reading Nobody Home on the Request Line
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